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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23035888">Twenty Years Redone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill'>WingedQuill</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Juniper Verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Curse Breaking, Cursed Jaskier | Dandelion, Curses, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, but the kind of curse where the breaking is worse than the casting, identity crisis, if anything I make it worse, not a fix it tho</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:16:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,921</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23035888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His reflection isn't unfamiliar. That’s the worst part. It’s a face that he knows, a face that he spent a century associating with himself. Despite everything, he feels more settled in his skin than he has in a long, long time. Like he’s pulled off a mask after decades, like he’s finally feeling fresh air on his face.</p><p>Or: A curse breaks. A bard becomes a witcher again. Jaskier is left to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Juniper Verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655494</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>624</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you've read Juniper Berries, you know where this is going. If you haven't, then you probably should (although this could work as an angsty stand-alone I guess). This'll likely only be a few chapters, dealing with Juniper's emotions immediately after the twenty-year undoing breaks. That means lots of angst and pretty much no comfort, so buckle in and...enjoy the ride?</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>EDIT: bamf-jaskier has made some absolutely gorgeous <a href="https://bamf-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/615307330058420224/20-years-undone-so-if-you-read-my-posts-a-lot">fanart</a> of this chapter on tumblr and I'm screaming. Thank you so so so so much!!<br/>(image warning for mild gore, it shows Jask's finger falling off)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ballad roars in Jaskier’s ears as he makes his way down the mountain, lyrics spilling into his mind full-formed, a tidal wave of music and beauty and <em>hurt. </em>This will be his masterpiece, he thinks. <em>I welcome my sentence, give to you my penance, garrotter, jury, and judge. </em>No need to add an adjective before garrotter. It stands strong enough on its own. Stronger.</p>
<p>He pays for his room on autopilot and the innkeeper gives him a worried look as she gathers up his coin. Why? Does he have something on—?</p>
<p>He brings a hand up to his face. Oh. He’s crying.</p>
<p>He accepts his key with a bitter half-smile and scuttles off to his room. It’s fine. He’s fine. He doesn’t need to cry over Geralt, he <em>shouldn’t </em>cry over Geralt because it’s not like Geralt would cry over him. Now if only his stupid body would get on board with his brain. Forget the witcher. Forget the past twenty years of your life and move on. Write this last, great ballad and then find a new muse.</p>
<p>
  <em>But the story is this—</em>
</p>
<p>He opens the door to his room.</p>
<p>
  <em>She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss—</em>
</p>
<p>Closes it behind him.</p>
<p>
  <em>Her sweet kiss—</em>
</p>
<p>Slings his lute onto the bed.</p>
<p>
  <em>But the story—</em>
</p>
<p>And promptly collapses on the ground.</p>
<p>His first thought is that Borch has snapped, has descended on the town and bathed it in dragonfire. The pain burns hot and sharp against his skin, his nerves, his blood, and he’s too shocked by the suddenness of it to even scream. He just gasps soundlessly, curled up on the ground, and isn’t fire supposed to burn away your nerve endings after a few seconds? Aren’t you supposed to stop hurting?</p>
<p>His second thought is that he hasn’t hurt this much since the trials. As soon as that idea flickers across his mind, the pain doubles, reaching beyond his skin and burrowing into his brain. Stars explode behind his eyes and the room gets impossibly bright, brighter than the sunniest day of summer.</p>
<p>His third thought is <em>wait.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Wait.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>What trials?</em>
</p>
<p>And oh.</p>
<p>Oh gods.</p>
<p>How could he have forgotten?</p>
<p>Something claws across his face. Clamps sharp teeth around a finger and bites down, hard. Slashes across his back, whip-sharp and thorny. He burns and burns and burns, until he thinks that he’ll surely die from the pain alone, that no person could survive this much—</p>
<p>And he’s thought this before, hasn’t he? As a small child, burning with fever as the grasses blew him apart and stitched him back together and oh gods, oh gods, oh gods what the <em>fuck.</em></p>
<p>The fire peaks and roars, and he thinks for a moment that he's become a bit of flame. Burning bright and burning fast and burning out—wasn’t that how musicians were supposed to live? And then, just as suddenly as it had struck him, the pain is gone. He’s left gasping and shuddering on the floor, every muscle aching like his entire body is one giant bruise.</p>
<p>What happened?</p>
<p>He’s knows—</p>
<p>But it can’t be—</p>
<p>
  <em>He can’t be.</em>
</p>
<p>It must have been a dream.</p>
<p>He gets one hand under himself and he almost screams at the sight of it. A huge jagged scar runs down the back of it, healed over like it’s been there for years. He’s missing—he’s missing a <em>finger, </em>oh gods, and it’s his left hand, the hand he uses to press down the chords. How will he play his lute?</p>
<p><em>You have bigger problems than that, </em>his memories hiss. <em>You’ll never play again and you know it.</em></p>
<p>He shoves himself to his knees and almost passes out, vertigo pressing over his vision like fog. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Keep moving until the danger has passed.</p>
<p>
  <em>No one will ever pay money to sit and listen to the music of a—</em>
</p>
<p>He can’t think the word.</p>
<p>He knows what he is but his brain refuses to make it real, refuses to accept what’s been done to him. It’s the curse. The twenty-year undoing. It’s broken. His time is up. Yennefer had warned him, back when they had fought the djinn. The worst thing that had ever happened to him, undone for twenty years and then dumped over his head like a bucket of cold water. Shocking him out of the dream that was his life. She’d warned him. And he’d been scared, terrified—scared of losing Geralt, his health, his voice. Anything and everything he had.</p>
<p>But he’d never imagined this. He’d never imagined that his humanity could be forfeit.</p>
<p>He brings his right hand up to his face to claw at the new-old scars that slash him in half from ear to ear. The aftermath of a particularly vicious fight with a werewolf, when he had been young and reckless and stupid. A century ago—shit, fuck, he’s over a hundred years old and the memories are fighting to cram themselves back into his skull.</p>
<p>He stays on the ground for a long time, shivering under the weight of his life. It hurts. It hurts. <em>It hurts. </em></p>
<p>The ballad still rings in his ears, tickling at his fingers and his vocal cords. He knows he’ll never sing it. He’ll never again stand in front of an audience and bask in their cheers and praise and laughter. Because no matter what he does, no one is ever going to love him again. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago. It was his second ever contract, hunting down ghouls in the dead of winter. He’d turned up at the inn with a bushel of heads and a gleam in his eye—still seeking out approval, like a foolish child—and they’d snatched up the heads and sneered at his request for payment and hurled him out into the snow. He’d gone from house to house, begging for someone, anyone to take him in.</p>
<p><em>I’ll freeze, </em>he’d said. <em>I’ll die. I just saved you, please, please.</em></p>
<p><em>You’ll live, </em>they’d sneered. <em>You don’t need our fire. You don’t need our heat. Didn’t they give you a potion for that?</em></p>
<p>That was the last time he’d relied on humanity for anything.</p>
<p>He’d taught himself to function without warmth. Without people. Only now he’s not sure if he can go back to that. If he can bury all the love he’s spent the past twenty years growing. Because he loves people, and he loves his life, and he loves the world and it <em>loved him back </em>and now—</p>
<p>He takes a deep breath, reaches out a hand and pulls himself up using the bed. The vertigo crashes back over him and he stands on shaking knees while he waits for it to pass.</p>
<p>He staggers over to the mirror. Some part of him is still insisting that he put it together wrong in his brain. That the curse just undid a nasty mauling. That he’s still human. That he’s still <em>Jaskier. </em>Scarred but still himself.</p>
<p>His reflection dashes those hopes to dust.</p>
<p>It’s not unfamiliar. That’s the worst part. It’s a face that he knows, a face that he spent a century associating with himself. Despite everything, he feels more settled in his skin than he has in a long, long time. Like he’s pulled off a mask after decades, like he’s finally feeling fresh air on his face.</p>
<p>This is him.</p>
<p>This is who he’s always been.</p>
<p>Juniper of Temeria.</p>
<p>Werewolf scars and golden eyes.</p>
<p>The word finally breaks into his mind, his denial shattered into a thousand pieces.</p>
<p>
  <em>Witcher.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Switching back and forth between Juniper Berries in the past tense and this story in the present tense is so confusing. Why did I do this to myself, you might ask? The answer is that I don't have a good answer. Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He spends that first night shuddering at the end of the bed, gasping for air through clenched teeth as his memories roll over him. His head is splitting, and his ears are ringing, and gods, the world is so much sharper, so much louder. The moonlight glows as bright as the sun, and he can hear and smell and <em>taste </em>every drunken fool in the tavern below, their sweat sour against his tongue. He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows down a mouthful of bile. He can do this, he can live like this, he just has to remember how to parse a bombardment of stimuli.</p><p>Someone shouts down below, a drunken protest, and someone else starts singing. It tears a hole in his chest, ripping out a heart that he’d spent a century insisting that he didn’t have. <em>Fishmonger’s daughter. </em>Always a hit, of course the rest of the tavern joins in, stomping feet and clapping hands. Nothing brings people together like a good song.</p><p>He clamps his hands over his ears, reeling with dizziness, but the song finds its way through his fingertips. Each note hits his eardrums like a knife and burrows into his brain, sending a reminder singing through his blood. <em>This is what you’ve lost, this is what you’ve lost, this is what you’ve lost. You’ll never be part of this again.</em></p><p>A sob punches its way out of his throat and he doubles over himself, wrapping his arms around his stomach. The song gets louder and the too-bright moon is blurry through a haze of tears. Panic burns like acid, like smoke, like flames in his throat and nose and chest. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t do anything but cry. His lips move without a thought, forming half-forgotten prayers to all the gods of his childhood—only <em>not </em>his childhood. It wasn’t his childhood, and his parents weren’t his parents, and <em>his life wasn’t his life, </em>gods, gods, <em>somebody help him.</em></p><p>He loses the battle against his stomach and vomit spatters across the floor. The smell rises up, fouler than it has any right to be, and he gags. The world falls away after that, a haze of bile and snot and loud cheers. He wants to scream but he can’t draw attention to himself—even his panic-addled brain knows that. What would the innkeeper say, if she came into his room to find a screaming, hysterical witcher, all dressed up in red finery? He doesn’t want to be thrown from the inn, not right now. He doesn’t think he could walk long enough or think clearly enough to get himself to safety.</p><p><em>Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, Jaskier—</em>shit that isn’t his name, that isn’t his name, that isn’t his <em>fucking </em>name.</p><p>Jaskier. Buttercup. A beautiful flower, deadly poisonous beneath its bright yellow petals. He’d chosen Juniper as his name because it was something healing. Because that’s how he’d wanted people to see him. And the man who’d done this to him had ripped that away too, had branded him as something innocuous but deadly. He laughs hysterically, flopping backwards onto the bed. And then keeps laughing while the tears stream down the sides of his face, pooling hot and wet on the pillow beneath him. Because Stregobor hadn’t been content with taking his past, his purpose, his fucking <em>species, </em>had he? No. He’d had to take his name. The one thing in his life Juniper had ever gotten to choose.</p><p>He’d destroyed him so completely. It was honestly a bit brilliant.</p><p>Gods, he never should have gone to Blaviken.</p><p>***</p><p>The Griffin School is all about honor. It’s as much a part of him as his signs and his sword. He carries the code in his heart, a burning star to light his way on the Path. When he hears about the massacre in Blaviken, he’s furious. Of course he’s furious. One of his own had snapped, had killed a dozen men. Their kind was already hated enough, they didn’t need that shadow hanging over them for years to come.</p><p>So he goes to Blaviken, intending to track down the wayward witcher. Geralt of Rivia. Demand an explanation. Kill him if need be.</p><p>“It’ll be dangerous,” Coën tells him when he learns of his plans. His eyes are grim. “The humans won’t be happy to see another witcher.”</p><p>“I know,” Juniper says, slinging his swords over his back.</p><p>“And if you do find Geralt, it won’t be an easy fight. They say the wolves gave him extra mutations.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t think even the wolves know, not really. They were playing with unknown fire when they made him. But they say he’s stronger than any of us.”</p><p>“Well I’ll just have to be faster.”</p><p>“Just be careful, alright?” He claps a hand on Juniper’s shoulder. “There are so few of us already.”</p><p>He grins back, reaching up to squeeze Coën’s forearm. The man is Juniper’s only friend, and he doesn’t show it much, but Juniper knows he cares about him. Knows he worries when Juniper takes on jobs like this, jobs that require extensive contact with humans.</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” he says. “Don’t worry about me.”</p><p>Coën snorts.</p><p>“I’m not worried about you. But if you get killed on this ridiculous mission, who’s gonna watch my back when I go after the big monsters?”</p><p>“I’m sure you’d manage.”</p><p>“Perhaps. But I’d have a fair few more scars.”</p><p>He lets go of Juniper and goes back to his horse.</p><p>“Stay safe,” he says. “And may we meet again soon.”</p><p>“We will.”</p><p>They won’t.</p><p>He camps on the outskirts of Blaviken and watches the town, and within a few days he knows that something is wrong. The people of the town seem to orbit around their mage, almost worshipfully. He doesn’t go anywhere without a small army of armed men. He rants and raves of the “curse of the black sun” whatever the fuck that means. And it’s clear that the town is caught up in his fervor, cheering him on with murder dancing in their eyes.</p><p>This isn’t some quiet, innocent town that a witcher had torn apart for the fun of it. There is something more at play here, and it centers around the mage.</p><p>So Juniper decides to pay him a visit.</p><p>His illusion of scores of naked women is…something. The man has a power fantasy, Juniper is sure of it. The feeling of <em>wrongness </em>tickles the back of his brain. He clears his throat and the mage spins around, hands flying from the woman he has backed against one of the many apple trees.</p><p>“Witcher,” he says, regaining his composure remarkably quickly. “I’d hoped to hear from one of your kind soon. Come.”</p><p>He puts a hand on Juniper’s elbow and guides him out of the garden, and Juniper follows, too startled to protest. The mage <em>wanted </em>to hear from his guild? Did he want them to answer for the massacre? Hunt down the witcher responsible?</p><p>“My name is Stregobor,” the man says as they walk.</p><p>“Juniper of Temeria.”</p><p>“I am mighty pleased to meet you, Juniper. You see, I have a monster that needs to be killed.”</p><p>And then he explains what the curse of the black sun is. What his <em>monster </em>is. Or rather, monsters. Sixty innocent women, condemned to death just because they’d been born under an eclipse. The horror builds in his chest as Stregobor talks, and it must show on his face, because Stregobor cuts himself off halfway through a sentence.</p><p>“You seem reluctant,” he says.</p><p><em>“Reluctant?” </em>he chokes. “You want me to hunt down and murder a human being, of course I’m <em>reluctant.”</em></p><p>“Silvenia isn’t a human being,” Stregobor snaps. “Do you call it ‘murder’ when you hunt down a ghoul? No. This is no different.”</p><p>“There is a <em>world </em>of difference.” Juniper backs away from him.</p><p>“Why is your kind so noble?” Frustration brims in Stregobor’s voice as he stalks forward, matching Juniper stride for stride. Juniper’s hand twitches for his sword but he doesn’t draw it. Not yet. There’s still a chance to resolve this peacefully.</p><p>“My kind? Did the first witcher you brought here refuse you as well?”</p><p>“At first,” Stregobor said. “But then we forced his hand, me and Renfri.”</p><p>“Renfri?”</p><p>“Another princess born under the eclipse. She came to Blaviken with the intent of murdering me. Her and a band of thieves.”</p><p>“So that is murder, then? Killing you?” Juniper asks, his voice slipping into an icy calm. Because the truth of the massacre is starting to form before his eyes. A monstrous mage, a desperate woman, a witcher caught in the middle of it all, blamed for the violence that ensued.</p><p>He wouldn’t let history repeat itself.</p><p>“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, witcher,” Stregobor says.</p><p>“I’m just asking a question. And giving you an answer. Goodbye.”</p><p>He will leave this place and tell Coën what he had learned, tell as many other witchers as he could. He can’t fight a mage this powerful alone, but with his brothers’ help he will find some way of making this man take responsibility for his actions. Make sure that no more women died because of some mad prophecy.</p><p>“Did you know that mages can read minds?” Stregobor asks, voice light and conversational.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>He breaks into a run but the doors slam shut before he’s gone five paces. His legs give out and he crashes to the ground, every muscle gone loose and unresponsive. He can’t even scream, can’t even blink. He can only breathe, frantic gasps of air as Stregobor’s footsteps meander over to him. Shit. Shit. Shit. He’s dead, or worse than dead, pinned to the ground like an insect behind glass. This man can do whatever he wants to him, and he’s powerless to stop it. His magic whirls frantically under his skin, trying to come to his aid, but he can’t form his fingers into the necessary signs.</p><p>“Do you really <em>think?” </em>Stregobor snarls. “I’d let some uneducated brute ruin my reputation?”</p><p>He plants a foot on Juniper’s shoulder and pushes him over onto his back. Then he leans down and traces a hand over Juniper’s face. Purple light sparks off his fingers, burns into Juniper’s skin like a brand. His lungs freeze, stopped just as completely as the rest of him and oh gods, he’s going to die here. Extinguished as easily as a bit of flame.</p><p>“I could kill you,” Stregobor murmurs thoughtfully. “Hack you to pieces and use you for spells. I’ve heard there’s a decent bit of magic in a witcher’s brain.”</p><p>And he won’t even get a proper funeral. His ashes won’t be taken and scattered to the wind, leaving him free to fly wherever he wished, he’ll be trapped in a dozen separate jars, he’ll—</p><p>Stregobor pulls his hand back and Juniper sucks in a lungful of air. It’s the sweetest thing in the world and he drinks it in greedily, because Stregobor could change his mind in an instant.</p><p>“But that would cause drama with your school, wouldn’t it griffin?” he says. “And besides, you’re so arrogant, thinking your kind can bring me down.”</p><p>He slips forward again, his hand burning yellow this time.</p><p>“I think you need to learn a lesson, witcher.”</p><p>He taps Juniper on the forehead and—</p><p>It’s like being crushed.</p><p>Over and over again.</p><p>Like he’s fighting to hold himself in a human’s shape when the light is determined to squash him out of existence. His brain is being emptied out, memories flying away faster than he could hope to catch them. He tries anyway, reaching out and clutching them tight. They burn like hot coals against his—not his skin, <em>himself. </em>The memories burn against the very fiber of who he is and soon he’s forced to let them go. The light swallows them up, burning them to ash.</p><p><em>What’s happening to me? </em>he screams-thinks-pleads-prays. Stregobor’s laugh is all around him, twisting against his essence and scraping of more and more pieces of himself.</p><p>“Whatever your worst thing is,” he says. “It happened very long ago.”</p><p>No.</p><p>No.</p><p>No no no no no, he’d heard of this curse, he’d helped victims of it before, and gods, <em>no.</em></p><p>He screams, loud and desperate and entirely in his head, and tries to hold himself together. But he’s being unwound, bit by bit, Stregobor is killing him and crushing him and spinning his life <em>back </em>and <em>back </em>and <em>back.</em></p><p>And why is he panicking?</p><p>Why is he <em>here—</em></p><p>Who is he?</p><p>What is</p><p>h</p><p>a</p><p>p</p><p>p</p><p>e</p><p>n</p><p>i</p><p>n</p><p>g</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Juniper of Temeria dies on the floor of Stregobor’s house that day.</p><p>Jaskier wakes up in the woods five hours later.</p><p>He’s a bit confused.</p><p>How did he get here again?</p><p>He shrugs, plucks up his lute, and blinks away his horrible headache. Must have had a bit too much wine the night before.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well this is...probably the angstiest chapter yet. Enjoy?</p><p>(CW for semi-graphic depiction of violence and injury. Yay.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a long night and Jask—<em>Juniper </em>doesn’t sleep for one bit of it. He cries until he’s all out of tears, and then he stares at the ceiling and thinks. At some point, he will need to get up. Clean up the vomit. And then—and then go on living, somehow.</p><p>He runs his hands over the fine silk of his chemise. Lacey and delicate. Fragile. Showy. He can’t wear this anymore. Can’t wear the dizzying array of colors that he—that Jaskier?—loves so much. A witcher dressed like a viscount? The humans wouldn’t like that one bit. How dare a monster pretend to be something beautiful? And besides, his clothes aren’t practical for fighting monsters. He’d just be making himself a colorful, flimsily-protected target.</p><p>Fighting monsters.</p><p>He doesn’t—</p><p>Is that what he’s going to do, now? Just go back to the Path? Pretend that he had never been cursed, pretend that he had never been human? Never play another song? The thought makes something scream, deep inside his chest, some wounded-animal part of himself howling in protest. He rolls out of bed, stumbles back over to the mirror.</p><p>Perhaps he can hide it, fake being human. Somehow. <em>Somehow. </em>He doesn’t want to give up his life, he doesn’t want—</p><p><em>The universe doesn’t care what you want, </em>one of his old tutors hisses in his ear. <em>Dwell too much on could-have-beens and you won’t be focusing on the now. And then you’ll die.</em></p><p>Well the past twenty years were one long could-have-been. How is he supposed to just cast that aside?</p><p>He reaches the mirror and stares into the glass. Again. Takes more time to catalog his appearance, now that the initial shock of it has passed. His irises look even more yellow against the redness brought on by tears. His pupils are blown wide in the dim light of the room, but there’s still no way his eyes could be mistaken for human. His face is crisscrossed by gigantic scars that will draw the gaze of everyone who sees him.</p><p>He looks half-wild with grief, cheeks wet with tears, hair sticking up in a dozen directions from pulling at it. See a human like that, hunched over a mug of ale, and you might be inclined to sympathy. Might offer him some food, a sympathetic smile, a willing ear. See a witcher like that, sad and stressed and frantic—there can be no response but fear. <em>He has nothing left to lose. What can he do now? </em>He had seen that back in the snow, back when he had knocked on every door he could find, trying to find someone, anyone, with a little bit of kindness for him. The more upset he’d gotten, the more desperate he’d gotten, the more humanity had pulled away from him.</p><p>Witchers don’t have emotions. A common saying, one that had been drilled into him as a child. One that he had heard Geralt utter plenty of times. It's bullshit. More accurate would be this: Witchers can’t show emotions. They can’t show emotions because every tear shed, every grieving scream, every bit of fury at the way the world treats them is just another piece of evidence against them. Another thing to hold up and say <em>look, look, here’s a monster.</em></p><p>He had thought he’d understood Geralt. Had thought the refrain of <em>I don’t have emotions </em>was just masculine posturing, or that he didn’t have the words to express his feelings, given his upbringing. But now he knows. He remembers the unending vigilance over his own body, his own facial expressions, his own voice. Remembers holding everything in so that he couldn’t give the humans around him a sword to stab him with.</p><p><em>Stop crying, </em>he tells himself as more tears slip out of his eyes and roll down his cheeks. <em>Stop crying, stop—</em></p><p>He looks <em>ridiculous.</em></p><p>A grizzled witcher, a finely-tuned product of alchemy and magic and relentless training, sobbing like a child and dressed in fancy red leathers. Like he could be something beautiful, something delicate, something worth comforting. <em>You really thought you could trick the humans into thinking you’re one of them? When you look like this?</em> A soft cry tears itself from his throat <em>(don’t be too loud, don’t let them hear you, don’t—) </em>and he flings his jacket across the room. He scrabbles at his chemise, hears something rip as he yanks it over his head, not bothering with the laces. Won’t need it anyway, won’t ever wear it again, it doesn’t matter if the expensive silk is torn, it doesn’t matter, it <em>doesn’t.</em></p><p>He freezes, shirt bundled in his arms. Catches himself in the mirror again. His torso, it—</p><p>He—<em>Jaskier</em>—had always prided himself on his skin, on keeping it soft and unblemished even as he chased a witcher across the continent, getting himself into an untold number of scraps. Each tiny cut was religiously treated with ointment, bandaged, massaged to keep the fresh skin supple. But Juniper had never had that luxury.</p><p>His face is bad enough, but his torso is <em>covered </em>in scars, long claw marks wrapping around his body like ropes, dotted through with the impressions of teeth and the shiny remains of burns. He turns around and cranes his head to see his back.</p><p>Another tiny village, needing a witcher’s help to rid them of their beast. Only this time, when he had been resting in the inn after dispatching a kikimora, there had been a brutal murder. A woman, strangled to death and thrown into the town’s well.</p><p>
  <em>It must have been the witcher. Who else would do something so cruel? Certainly not one of our own.</em>
</p><p>He hadn’t even gotten a trial.</p><p>They had dragged him from his bed and bound him to a post in the middle of the town square and—</p><p>He reaches a hand over his shoulder and touches one of the fine white lines that cover his back from neck to hips. They had flayed him nearly raw, striking him with a barbed whip again and again until he had lost count, until he had begged for them to kill him.</p><p><em>You don’t deserve a quick death, witcher, </em>the executioner had snarled, grabbing a hunk of Juniper’s hair and dragging up his head to show the town his tears. <em>See how he tries to garner our sympathies now? Well we won’t fall for it.</em></p><p>Another blow. Another. Anotheranotheranother.</p><p>They had left him there to die of exposure, and all he could do was close his eyes and pray that it would be over quickly.</p><p>And then, a strangled gasp. Running footsteps. A presence hovering over him.</p><p>
  <em>Shit, fuck, fuck this shitty fucking town.</em>
</p><p>A hand on his chin, tilting his head up. The world was too blurry to understand what was happening, but seeing his face set off another round of curses.</p><p>
  <em>He’s a witcher, he’s—come on, give me your dagger.</em>
</p><p>Oh good, they were going to kill him.</p><p>And then his hands were falling away from the post, sending jolts of pain searing up his shoulders. He’d screamed, short and pained before a warm hand had pressed over his mouth.</p><p>
  <em>Shut up, shut up. Don’t want to wake up the entire town.</em>
</p><p>Arms curling none-to-gently under his legs and behind his neck, hoisting him up and cradling him against someone’s chest. Taking him away to another, more horrible death, taking him away to burn him or drown him or—</p><p>Yellow eyes peering out of the haze.</p><p>Another witcher.</p><p>Thank the gods.</p><p>
  <em>We’re leaving.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But Lambert, the kikimora—</em>
</p><p><em>Let them all die, they’d do this to one of our own, gods, we’re </em>leaving.</p><p>His savior—Lambert—had stormed away. Silence. Then another set of hesitant footsteps. The other witcher following in his stead.</p><p><em>Safe. I’m safe. </em>And with that thought, Juniper had passed out.</p><p>He had woken up, bandaged and warm and <em>hurting</em>, in a healer’s hut five towns over. He’d never seen either of his saviors again, and the healer had kicked him out only two days after waking. He’d returned to the Path, back still sticky with blood and fiery with pain.</p><p>The wounds had never been given the proper chance to heal. He’d torn them open again and again, fighting monsters to protect the very species that had brutalized him. And he hadn’t slept in an inn for a long time after that, preferring to camp in the cold, damp forest. So of course the whip marks had scarred, turning his back into a tapestry, telling the world what had been done to him.</p><p>He runs his fingers over the marks. Chokes back a sob. Tears had not bought him mercy in the freezing winter, when all he’d wanted was somewhere warm to sleep. They had not bought him mercy at the whipping post, where the executioner had beaten him harder than he would any human.</p><p>They will buy him nothing now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am putting our boy through a lot, huh?</p><p>Also! I finally caved and made a witcher-centric tumblr! My URL is wingedquill.tumblr.com so pop on over there if you wanna yell about this fic or witchery stuff in general. I might fill some drabbles if you shoot me some prompts. Anyway, see y'all next time!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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